


Language X: Battle Hymns

by Whitehat2018



Series: New Mutants: Children of the Atom [3]
Category: New Mutants, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 22:17:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15760821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whitehat2018/pseuds/Whitehat2018
Summary: ...Cypher's in trouble!  Once again Doug Ramsey's nose for danger has gotten him in over his head.  An old mentor comes to the rescue... but Cypher and Magneto have a lot to say to one another while they go after Sugar Man!





	Language X: Battle Hymns

_Battle hymns for the broken_

_Battle hymns for the misled;_

_Battle hymns the wretched,_

_The forgotten, and the dead;_

_Battle hymns of redemption,_

_Of solidarity and pride_

_Battle hymns we will be singing_

_At the turning of the tide_

“Cypher to X-Nexus,”  Cypher said, his back to a stack of crates, in a half-crouch against a bare concrete floor, “Situation update and request for _immediate_ assistance.”

               The communicator came to life.  “…This is Shadowcat, Cypher.  What’ve you run into?”

               “Well,”  Doug said, looking up, “I’ve found out who was kidnapping those mutant kids.  Unfortunately… I dug a little too deep and he just found me.  I think I’ve managed to lose him—”

               A crashing sound echoed from nearby, and Doug closed his eyes.  “But I don’t know for how long.”

               Kitty’s response was measured, precise.  “Locating the nearest friendly and sending them your location.”

               A long, forked tongue snaked down, and began to probe around.  Doug jerked away from it, but moved too quickly, and it paused.  “Kitty—”  Doug pulled a pocketknife from his pocket, flicked it open, and jammed it through the tongue, pinning it to the wall, before he got up and bolted.  “ _HURRY!”_

               As Doug ran, the sound of something heavy crashing through crates and bounding after him got closer and closer.  Doug placed a hand on the door of the warehouse, when that tongue latched around his legs, and dragged him back…

               And face to face with the ugly, leering visage of Sugar Man.

               “I remember you, kid—”  Sugar Man said, around his tongue, “You were one of the punks that cost me my ticket home and got me thrown in the cooler!”  The tongue lifted Doug, until he dangled upside down.  “Your friends aren’t here to pull your narrow hinder out of the trap."

               Doug wrinkled his nose.  “Your breath is _unimaginably foul_ , Sugar Man.  It smells like a Kimchee and Raspberry Yogurt smoothie… served in the Blob’s singlet.”

               “Funny guy,”  Sugar Man said, leaning his round body back, and lifting Doug over his head with his tongue.  “I’m gonna enjoy this—”  He opened his mouth, wide.

               “Kitty,”  Doug said, into his communicator, “ _He’s gonna eat me—_ ”

               “Good news and bad news, Cypher.  The good news is, rescue is in-bound, and it’s heavy cavalry.”

               Doug bent at the waist, trying to avoid Sugar Man’s mouth.  “That must be _some_ bad news!”

               The roof of the warehouse began to shake, and Doug’s slow descent into Sugar Man’s mouth stopped.

               “Huh?”  Both said, at once.

               Then the roof of the warehouse began to peel away, as it opened like a can.  Metal rafters began to wrench themselves free, and formed themselves into javelins.

               Sugar Man’s eyes widened.  “Oh, _hell_.”  He looked at Doug, and then narrowed his eyes, before he hurled him into a stack of wood pallets and ran for it.  Javelins lanced after him.

               Doug clenched his teeth, in agony—and as the world went dark, he felt something sleek and metallic slither around him and lift him up.

               When he awoke, he found himself stripped and bandaged, lying in a soft bed.  Doug closed his eyes, willing the room to stop spinning.  Then he pushed himself up and into a sit.  He found a tray nearby, with a glass of water and some pills – painkillers – and helped himself.

               “You’re awake.”   The voice came from the doorway, quiet.  “Good.  Many of the others would’ve been able to ignore Sugar Man tossing them aside like that.  You were pretty badly roughed-up by it.”  Magneto uncrossed his arms and stepped into the room.   As he did, a tray levitated behind him, before setting itself up across Doug’s lap.  The lid lifted from a bowl of vegetable soup, and a metal pot poured a cup of scalding tea.

               Doug inhaled the scent of the soup, and suddenly realized that he was ravenous.  “I’m in Madripoor.”

               “You are now.”  Magneto said, before a chair pulled itself up, and he settled into it with a weary sigh.  “Doug… what were you _doing_?”

               Doug paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth, and then set it down.  “Tracking an outbreak of disappearing Mutant kids.  I’m surprised Kitty didn’t clue you in herself.”

               “Kitty and I aren’t as close as we once were.  The supreme leader of the X-Men and the Master of Magnetism are ever at odds, no matter who holds the role of the former.”  Magneto said, a touch of acrimony creeping into his voice.  “But I’m willing to guess that the task she set for you didn’t involve picking a fight with Sugar Man.”

               Doug exhales.  “The problem with this kind of investigation is, sometimes the target finds you.  Sugar Man is disgusting, and he’s evil… but he’s not stupid.”  He took another spoonful of soup, and rolled his shoulders.

               Magneto considered that.  “You should go back to New York.  Sugar Man is a match for a team of seasoned X-Men.”

               “I know, I was part of the group that took him down last time.”  Doug said, before he raised his tea to his lips—green tea, astringent, with lemon.  He let the fragrance revive him, before he tasted it.  “He must’ve escaped during the tumult when Hydra usurped the U.S. government.  The problem is, now that he knows we’re on him, he’s liable to abandon his operation and bail, and the whole thing will start all over again.”

               Magneto nodded, once, in agreement.  “So, what are you thinking?”

               Doug lowered his teacup, and said, “I’m thinking… I could really use your help, sir.”  He looked up and met Magneto’s gaze.

               The corner of Magneto’s mouth turned up, slowly.  “He learns wisdom.”  He gestured, and a hanger appeared, with a uniform on it.  It included a black and blue bodysuit and a heavy leather jacket.  “I had this made for you while you were out.  Your clothes, unfortunately, were a loss.” 

               Doug rolled his shoulders again, and then said, “…I’d like to finish this, first.  How long was I out?”

               “Two days.”  Magneto said.  “You broke several bones and had a nasty concussion.  Fortunately, I had the technology here to heal you.”  He scowled.  “Some things never change.”

               Doug’s mouth quirked.  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

               “I mean that your willingness to put yourself in danger still _vastly_ outweighs your common sense.”  Magneto stood up, and crossed his arms.  “You should’ve backed out and contacted Kitty the instant you suspected whose trail you were on.”

               “Again,”  Doug said, as he held his teacup with both hands, “I would’ve risked losing him!  Every moment that Sugar Man roams free puts innocent people in danger.  So, I stayed on the trail.”

               Magneto took a pained inhale.  “I suppose it’s fruitless to try and get you to hold yourself in reserve.”

               “I’m aware of my weaknesses relative to my strengths.”  Doug said.  “But men who lack my advantages put themselves in danger every day, in circumstances that are proportionally no more or less dangerous.  I don’t see the difference.”

               “The difference…”  Magneto said, “Is one of application.  Your powers could shake the pillars of the earth, Doug – but you consistently misapplied yourself, and ran yourself ragged trying to keep pace with the others, instead of being light-years ahead of them in the areas where they couldn’t match you.  And the end result was that you threw your life—and your potential away.”

               Doug’s fingers tightened around his cup.  “…I need to get dressed.”  He said, his voice quiet.  He set the tray aside, and got up.  “…Then we can go.”  He pushed himself out of bed, and began to dress, pulling on the uniform.  “…I’m grateful.  It means a lot that you’re willing to help me, sir.”

               Magneto lifted the tray, and turned to leave the room.  “…You need only ask, Doug.  You need only ever ask.”

               Later, Doug picked through the ruins of the warehouse, with Magneto floating nearby.  “He fled this way,”  Doug said, “And crashed out the back door.  You didn’t chase him—”

               “Getting you out was my priority.”  Magneto said.

               “We’ll have to agree to disagree, there.”  Doug said.  “He smashed through these steel doors… and then…”  Doug crouched outside in front of the water, and ran his hand over a scuffmark at the water’s edge, “…He jumped into the water.”

               Magneto crossed his arms, behind Doug.  “…Did you lose him?”

               “…No,”  Doug said, “…I don’t think so.”  He stood up.  “Let’s go flying.”

               Magneto shrugged off his cloak, which flattened into a sheet of metal, and Doug stepped onto it.  Together, they lifted into the air.

               “Earlier you said that I threw my life away.”  Doug said, as they flew out over the harbor, toward the open sea.  “I don’t agree.  Everyone blames themselves for my death but the truth is… Rahne was going to die.  I knew it; instinctively, objectively.  The Ani-Mator was going to shoot her in the back of the head.”

               Magneto looked away, his face dark, and shrouded by his helmet.

               “…And you would rather that I had lived and Rahne had died.”  Doug said, “If you were forced to choose between us.”

               “Rahne is a wonderful girl, Doug,”  Magneto said, “I would never want anything to happen to her.”  He was silent for a moment, then added, “But she never had your potential.  While you may not see it, the Mutant cause was set back years when you died.  I had plans for you—”

               “You had plans for me.”  Doug said, “What I wanted for myself never factored into those plans.”

               “You were a boy.”  Magneto said.

               “I fail to see how that matters,”  Doug said.  “You know…”  He curled his lip, “Between Xavier only taking me on under duress and you deciding my destiny without consulting me, I find myself a man without a mentor.”

               Magneto canted his head to the side.  “What are you getting at?”

               Doug paused, and then held up his hand.  He squinted at the water.  “Do you feel it?  Down there.”

               Magneto looked down and held out a hand.  “A wrecked freighter.  How can you see that?”

               “Subtle changes in the current.”  Doug said.  Then he looked over at Magneto.  “He’s in there.”

               Magneto uncrossed his arms, and then gestured, with both hands.

               Beneath the surface of the water, in the wet, cramped confines of his lab, Sugar Man felt the hull tremble around him, and growled.  “Damn it—”

               The sea began to boil, as the shipwreck lifted free from the mud of the sea floor and began to rise toward the surface.  It broke the surface of the water, crusted with barnacles, holes in the rusted hull pouring out water.

               Magneto’s cloak carried Doug to the deck, and then slipped free, winding itself around his shoulders.  Doug crouched, and then gestured to the bridge of the ship and part of the deck.  “He re-sealed it and pumped the water out.  The kids are in there!”

               Inside the ship, Sugar Man rolled onto the bridge, and slapped a computer console with one hand.  “Ha HA!”

               Guns rose from the deck of the ship, and Magneto brought one hand around.  “Doug – behind me!”  Bolts of energy lanced from the ship’s defenses, splashing off of an energy shield.

               Doug kneeled behind Magneto.  “Incredible.  You’re not even straining yourself.”

               Magneto smirked.  “Son, you seem to have forgotten who the hell I am?”

               The defense guns disassembled themselves, one by one.

               Doug looked up, and then said, “…Let’s go say hello.” 

               The door to the ship ripped off its hinges, and Doug and Magneto stepped inside.  “Hello,”  Doug called, “Avon call-ing!”

               Together, the two emerged onto the bridge.  In unison, Magneto and Doug looked up, and into the spherical shape of Sugar Man, who was clinging to the ceiling.  He dropped, and Doug rolled to the side, as Sugar Man threw his weight into Magneto, knocking him aside.

               “You again, loser?”  Sugar Man said, rebounding and turning to face Doug.  “Do you wanna know what you were where I come from, kid?”  He sneered, showing sharp teeth, “Absolutely nothing.  A frickin’ nobody.”

               “Sugar Man,”  Doug said, rising to his feet, “There are worse things to be than a nobody.  I’m kind of looking one of them in the face… body.  What the hell are you, anyway?”  As he bantered, Doug backed up toward a capacitor, slowly.

               Sugar Man growled.  “Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball, kid.  Magneto’s down for the count, and I’m about to finish what I started with you earlier.”  His tongue snaked out of his mouth.

               Doug saw Magneto open one eye, on the ground.  “I mean, you’re you’re just a big round ball with a face on it, arms, and legs.  You’re freakin’ ridiculous.  I’m really having a hard time buying that you were one of Apocalypse’s right hand men.  “ _Porniți condensatorul.”_

               “Oh, that is _it_.”  Sugar Man’s tongue lashed forward, and Doug dropped to the floor.  It lashed out over his head and slapped the capacitor.  Magneto clenched his fist, and electromagnetic charge shot through it… and up Sugar Man’s tongue.  Sugar Man’s eyes widened, as the charge ran through his body, and then he dropped.

               Magneto rose to his feet, and limped toward Sugar Man.  “He’s alive.”  He said.  “More’s the pity.”  He looked over to Doug, and then sheets of metal peeled up from the floor, wrapping Sugar Man up, and trapping him.

               “…The kids are more important.”  Doug said, looking to a row of stasis pods.  He walked to a computer console, and checked Sugar Man’s files. “…He was experimenting on them for fun, while he worked on his real goal; finding a way to open a dimensional doorway to get him back to his home dimension.”

               Magneto’s eyes narrowed, under his helmet, and he turned to the prison he had built around Sugar Man.  He raised his hand to make a fist, but Doug placed his hand on his arm.

               “…No.”  He said.  “I’m asking you not to, as a favor to me.  If you _ever_ cared what I thought… don’t.”

               “…Says the young man who persuaded Warlock to kill Cameron Hodge.”  Magneto said.

               Doug’s expression darkened.  “That was self-defense.  If I had seen any other way—”

               “Don’t assume a beatific guise at me, Douglas.  You did the ruthless, necessary thing—and you feel no guilt.  Hodge’s life and the lives of his men meant nothing to you.”  Magneto said.  “You’re willing to do whatever it takes.  So why spare Sugar Man?”

               “You’re right.”  Doug said, “I don’t.  They didn’t.  Not a thing.  And I am.  But not out of vengeance… only out of necessity.  We won… and that’s enough.”

               Magneto grimaced… and then unclenched his fist.  “…Enough for today.”

               Later that evening, Doug watched the spotlights on the descending blackbird come to collect Sugar Man and take him home, through the torrential downpour.  Magneto stood next to him.

               “…Doug.”  Magneto said.  “I still believe that your powers can reshape the world in ways that you’ve never imagined.  Why do you hold yourself back?”

               Doug looked up, his face wet with the rain.  “You admitted that if you’d had the choice, you’d rather I lived and Rahne died.”  He looked up to Magneto, who couldn’t meet his eyes.  “You favored Sam to be the leader of the X-Men… you barely concealed your dislike of Bobby.”  Doug looked back up at the plane.

               “Sam’s a used-up husk now, in a lot of ways.  Put him in a leadership position and he’s _crippled_ by self-doubt.  He consistently second-guesses himself.  You, Cable, Pete Wisdom wanted him to be tough and ruthless, willing to do whatever it took, and that’s what he became, because nobody gave him a choice.  Meanwhile, you and Xavier and Cable all wrote Bobby off as an unreliable, selfish hot-head, with no real loyalty to anybody but himself.  And now he’s showed his true colors and stepped up to lead.”  The plane landed in the courtyard, and the rear hatch began to open.  “What does that tell you?”

               Magneto was silent, as water dripped off of his nose and chin.

               “It informs me that your prognostications about both of their characters were _wrong_.  Sam is a great leader, but the three of you conspired to harden a kind and courageous man and almost ruined him.  Bobby is a visionary who can sell sno-cones to eskimos, whose loyalty to his friends and to mutantkind is beyond question.  …And me?”

               Magneto canted his head to look at Doug.

               “…I don’t know.”  Doug said.  “That’s just it.  _I don’t know_.  And I never did.”  He looked up at Magneto, and raised his voice.  “AND IT’S NOT YOUR PLACE TO TELL ME!  IT’S MY CHOICE!  MINE!  YOU HEAR ME?  HOW I LIVE IS _MY_ CHOICE!”

               Magneto stood, impassively.

               “Xavier never wanted me, and only brought me to the school because Sam forced him to make a choice.”  Doug said, his voice sad.  “You were only interested in what you needed me to be.  I am so… _angry_ with both of you.  And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop being angry.”

               “…I don’t blame you for hating me, Doug.”  Magneto said.

               “…You misheard me.”  Doug said.  “I don’t hate you.  I don’t hate you _at all_ , sir.”  He watched Magneto levitate Sugar Man’s impromptu prison into the Blackbird, followed by the stasis pods containing the kidnapped mutant children.  “Just like I don’t hate Xavier.  Just the opposite.  You can hold both love and anger toward the same person in your heart.  As you well know.  You would be surprised at how many people who are ostensibly opposed to you love you with all their hearts.”  Doug began to walk toward the blackbird, and then stopped in the rain.

               “…A word of advice, sir.”  Doug said.  “The real difference between you and Professor Xavier wasn’t ideological.  It was that Xavier understood that the organization he built to champion mutant rights, mutant _survival_ would need to be able to survive in the event of his death or incapacitation.  He taught the X-Men with that goal in mind.  You have always taken the paternalistic view—that Magneto knows best, always… and must always be the iron hand guiding mutantkind.  It’s the _only meaningful_ difference in outlook between you!  But that’s why even with Xavier gone, the X-Men persist… and why everything you’ve ever built has come to ruin in your absence.  That’s it.”

               Doug moved to step onto the plane.  “…Nobody lives forever, sir.  Take it from me.”

               Magneto watched the hatch begin to shut.  “…Doug!”  He called.

               Doug looked up.

               “…Whatever you become...”  Magneto said, “…Don’t lose your courage.”

               The door to the blackbird hissed shut.

               Inside, Doug leaned against the door, as Kitty approached and tossed him a towel.  “You okay?”

               Doug toweled himself off, briskly.  “No.”  He admitted.  “But I’m getting better.”

               Magneto watched the blackbird fly away, and walked back into the pagoda, to his quarters.  With the flick of a hand, a picture frame floated off a high shelf into his hand.  He looked at the smiling students gathered around him.  “…What are the desires and dreams of a few ignorant, unmolded children stacked against the needs of the race?”  He said, to himself.

               “…More than you knew, old man.  they're more than you knew.”  He put the photo back.

-Fin

_And I don’t care for cause or consequence_

_Head shaved and body lean;_

_I’m the go-getter, the score-settler_

_I’m the shadow on the green;_

_And there’s a flock of blackbirds flyin’ nearly ten thousand strong_

_Who set off this morning_

_And brother, they’re gone_

-Tom Morello, “Battle Hymns”

**Author's Note:**

> This one just kind of came to me unbidden. I really need to take a break! Still soliciting suggestions for characters or music, though! Once again, the song's not a perfect fit, but the tone suits.


End file.
